SIDEWALKS AND SIDESTREETS: High-tech knocked him low

Monday

Jul 3, 2017 at 4:04 PMJul 3, 2017 at 4:04 PM

By Philip Leo McCarron

I haven’t been around for a while. Missing in action. Did you notice?

I’d love to say that I took a literary sabbatical so I could climb Mount Everest, learn how to paraglide, earn a law degree, or build myself a log home in the wooded hills of New Hampshire. I’d love to say that – I really do. But I can’t. Because I didn’t.

No.

Simply, my computer broke. In more ways than one.

It’s like having teeth, or the ability to breathe … you don’t really appreciate using or having them, until you can’t use or have them anymore. Even for a little while. Breathing sort of speaks for itself – if you can’t do that, well, nothing else really matters much, does it? But the teeth thing ought to catch your attention. Think of eating a nice, thick steak. Or even crunchy breakfast cereal – Fruit Loops, or Raisin Bran. Corn Flakes. Breakfast without choppers means yogurt or Cream of Wheat. Or worse. Lunch: tuna on soft bread. Maybe hummus instead. Supper: soup. Broth, really. Mashed potatoes. Mashed … everything. Maybe even a mush-meal, nursing-home (or baby food) style. And, no matter how hard the manufacturers of these products try, the best taste they manage to produce can be compared to Silly Putty, or just plain old putty. Oh – joint compound comes to mind, too.

We live in a world where computers rule, and there’s no argument there. Back in the day? I used to write my stuff (stories, articles, etc.) on an electric typewriter. If I could afford it, I’d buy corrective tape to put in it – the top half (of the tape) contained black ink, the bottom half made up of corrective tape (read: White Out). The more you used the bottom half (yes – it was that obvious), the worse off you were. My solution? I used to write my stuff longhand, in a notebook, do my editing there, and then – when satisfied (I had to do my word-counts manually) – I’d transcribe the piece from my notebook to the typewriter. And hope I didn’t have a finger-flick that caused a typo. Which caused a correction. Which made the piece look less professional.

Then I had to duplicate the original manuscript, by either typing it all over again, or by the use of the new-fangled thing called a ‘copy-machine.’

Now, armed with two copies of the manuscript, it had to be delivered to the objective publisher. This was done using a method called SASE. Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope. Buy two manila envelopes, big enough to contain an 8” x 11” manuscript. Address the first envelope to your objective publisher, the second addressed to yourself. Fold the envelope addressed to yourself and pack it into the publisher-addressed one, along with the manuscript itself. Have the postal clerk weigh it, and then pay the fee. And off into the USPS ether the whole package went.

Then: wait. If accepted, you got a check. If not, you got your manuscript back, in the pre-paid envelope you sent along with it. Sometimes with a note. Most times, nothing. Writing is a difficult trade.

But now we have two things: computers, and email. And both can break. In my case, both did.

Once I fixed my PC, my email – with help from my provider – broke, too. After many phone calls, I managed to sort that out, too.

I hope.

Truth be told: I miss my old Underwood …

Philip Leo McCarron is a Stoughton resident. He can be contacted by email at philmccarron@yahoo.com, and enjoys your comments. Why not email him?